TheMICrONS program(Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks) is a five-year project run by the United States government through theIntelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity(IARPA) with the goal ofreverse engineeringone cubic millimeter—spanning many petabytes of volumetric data—of a rodent's brain tissue and use insights from its study to improvemachine learningandartificial intelligenceby constructing aconnectome.[1][2]The program is part of theWhite HouseBRAIN Initiative.[1][2]
| MICrONS | |
|---|---|
| Commercial? | No |
| Type of project | Academic; Scientific (neuroscience) |
| Location | United States |
| Owner | IARPA |
| Established | 2016 |
| Funding | United States government,US$100 million |
| Website | www |
Teams
editThe program has set up three independent teams, each of which will take a different approach towards the goal. The teams are led by David Cox ofHarvard University,Tai Sing Lee ofCarnegie Mellon University;[1][2]and jointly by Andreas Tolias and Xaq Pitkow of theBaylor College of Medicine,Clay Reid of theAllen Institute for Brain Science,andSebastian SeungofPrinceton University.[3]
The Cox team aimed to build a three-dimensional map of the neural connections within the source tissue block using reconstructions fromelectron micrographs.[3]
Technology and infrastructure for storing petabyte-scale volumetric data, including a cloud-based database, bossDB,[4]were developed by theJohns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab.[5]
Approach
editThe part of the brain chosen for the project is part of thevisual cortex,chosen as a representative of a task –visual perception– that is easy for animals and human beings to perform, but has turned out to be extremely difficult to emulate with computers.[1][2]
Cox's team attempted to build athree dimensionalmapping of the actual neural connections, based on fineelectron micrographs.[2]Lee's team took aDNA barcodingapproach, in attempt to map the brain circuits by barcode-labelling of each neuron, and cross-synapse barcode connections.[1]
Tolias's team took adata-drivenapproach, assuming the brain createsstatisticalexpectations about the world it sees.[2]They usedmultiphoton microscopyto record activity of nearly every neuron in the cubic millimeter of visual cortex in response to diverse and rich visual stimuli. Data aggregation, processing, and analysis were performed using theDataJoint framework.[6]
Results
editThe primary data has been collected, processed, and submitted for publication:"Functional connectomics spanning multiple areas of mouse visual cortex".bioRxiv10.1101/2021.07.28.454025v3.
References
edit- ^abcdeCepelewicz, Jordana (March 8, 2016)."The U.S. Government Launches a $100-Million" Apollo Project of the Brain "".Scientific American.Springer Nature America.RetrievedNovember 27,2018.
- ^abcdefEmily, Singer (April 6, 2016)."Mapping the Brain to Build Better Machines".Quanta Magazine.Simons Foundation.RetrievedNovember 27,2018.
- ^abGleeson, Alfie; Sawyer, Abigail (October 2018)."Mapping a Brain".BioTechniques(Paper).65(4): 181–5.doi:10.2144/btn-2018-0142.PMID30284931.
- ^"BossDB".bossdb.org.RetrievedDecember 31,2018.
- ^"boss".RetrievedNovember 27,2018.
The Boss is a cloud based storage service developed for the IARPA MICrONS program.
- ^MICrONS Consortium,Functional connectomics spanning multiple areas of mouse visual cortex, bioRxiv 2021.07.28.454025; doi:https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.28.454025
External links
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